Seeking Heavy Cropping Tomato Varieties.

[ed dibbles]

Looking at the 'Heaviest Tomato' thread above has inspired me to try growing giant tomatoes myself next year. I shall be ordering seed of the usual suspects.

This got me thinking about the heaviest yielding varieties, not just the largest fruits. What varieties produce the largest weight of tomatoes per plant.

I don't know if it was here on A4A or another site or blog that had a list of tomato varieties that throw really heavy crops. Any suggestions?

[ed dibbles]

[squeezyjohn]

For me Amish paste have made the most fruit (by weight) consistently since I started growing them - they make very large plum type tomatoes with a lot of pulp and not many seeds and they can be very odd shapes sometimes!  In a better summer they start coming ripe in August although mine are just ripening now this year.  They're best eaten sliced in a sandwich fresh and they make an excellent sweet tomato sauce for freezing or bottling.

[johhnyco15]

i think this could be a question of location and how many toms you need and flavour you like and purpose of the fruit as i said in another post here on the sunshine coast sungold crop very well  however they are very sweet we have had a very dry hot sunny summer so they are sweeter   medium  size toms alicante really crops well as do tamina and the essex fav money maker any large beefstake here is tricky to grow no rain means blossom end rot can be a prob but with regular watering they thrive Tomato 'Cuore di Bue fandango and big daddy all punch above their weight   and they can get quite big so id look at your surroundings before  you make your choice

[sunloving]

This year I grew brandy boy which produced a much greater weight of fruit than any of the other varieties every plant had four full trusses of half pound fruit. However they were pretty hard and largely a cooking rather than snacking tomato.behemoth king produced lots of heavy fruit but only on one truss.

Sunloving

[tricia]

Taste of Italy outdoors did extraordinarily well for me this year, very heavy trusses which needed extra support. I am enjoying them sliced in sandwiches - but they also make a very good thick sofrito.

Tricia 

[ed dibbles]

Thanks for your suggestions. Had a look at Amish Paste and the Orange Banana someone else recommended. It seems they are both noted as good croppers by others.

johhnyco15 I accept totally that local conditions play a very important part as well as personal taste. You are obviously in a very favoured position being in the drier east and able to grow outdoor tomatoes with ease even if with the aid of bordeaux mixture. Here in somerset all my outdoor tomatoes succumbed to blight, something I doubt even bordeaux mixture would ultimately fend off. Luckily the ones under cover are cropping heroically.

Your comment on another thread that if it were a choice between an outdoor crop of poorly flavoured but blight resistant varieties like Crimson Crush or a blighted and unusable well flavoured type then the blight resistant type it must be. Most of the tomatoes we grow are cooked anyway. This is a lesson for next season.

I found a helpful  post by Jeannine from 2008 where she give the names of some varieties that gave her 10-12 lbs of fruit per plant. Also one from TeeGee who pointed out that a large tomato may produce heavier but fewer fruit and a smaller fruited kind many more fruits per plant so overall the total weight is much the same.

Of course he is right, and this got me thinking, a giant fruited variety may produce ten, one pound fruits while a medium sized may produce fifty four ounce fruits and a cherry tom hundreds.

Growing the heaviest yielding veggies is now my goal. If you are trying to feed your household all year round as I am it makes sense. For example a one inch diameter baby beet may be sweet and tender and terribly fashionable but letting it grow to three inches in diameter does not increase its mass three times but twenty seven times 3x3x3 (approx). 

I have never found a woody beetroot yet now matter how big they grow.

Likewise other veg - larger mass means more crop in any given space.

Still interested in other posters' tomato yield experiences. Thanks again for the sugestions so far. 

[byrd2park]

Heavy yield has a lot to do with growing methods as well as variety.
Plants in pots produce less then those planted in good soil in the ground. The bigger your plants grow
the more tomatoes they  can produce so if you will want bigger harvest cordon varieties for total 
bigger harvest over the season.
you also need to let your plants get large and tall to produce a lot fruit.
And finally to get bigger harvest you can't prune your plants because the side branch that are usually
pruned will produce flowers then fruit if given chance. 
after doing a google search found book by a guy set the world record for tomato yield from one plant.
It think he got over 40 kg per plant if read the amazon blurbs on book correctly.
the author was Charles H. Wilber. the book "How to Grow World Record Tomatoes: A Guinness Champion Reveals His All-Organic Secrets" not sure if it would work for you but it should.

[squeezyjohn]

Is 'taste of italy' a type of tomato, or the seed manufacturer?  I've definitely had Taste of Italy seeds before - but they were spinach!

[tricia]

I labelled the seed pots Taste of Italy, but you are right it's an Oxheart type, seeds from Thompson & Morgan. I've just dug out the seed packet and it says pretty much what I wrote about it. Large fruits, a tall plant which needs heavy staking. (377g was the heaviest.)
Tricia 

[squeezyjohn]

Thanks for clearing that up Tricia ... sounds like a good variety to try

[saddad]

I've been very impressed with the quantity of tomatoes from an HSL variety "Clibran's Victory"  have only had seed these last two seasons but it crops well, large trusses of medium fruit over along period. Some years Orange banana just refuses to stop setting... into late October under glass, but it is prone to blossom end rot.

[Tee Gee]

I don't particularly go for 'giant' tomatoes but I do like large tomatoes as opposed to say cherry types which are usually too sweet for me.

My four contenders are Vanessa, Tasha, Moneymaker( old type but still as good as many of the new varieties in my opinion)

My fourth is one that I have grown for over twenty years, it is saved seed from a tomato I ate in Feurtaventura so I brought one home with me and saved the seed, which I still do every year.

For convenience I have named it Feurta.

I have a Sweet Pepper that got the same treatment!